Title race 'not over yet' says Marquez

Marc Marquez is on the cusp of a fifth MotoGP world title but the Honda rider says his job is far from over, despite leading the championship by 72 points.

Marquez took victory at Aragon for his first premier class win since the German Grand Prix in July, stretching his advantage at the top over Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, who finished as the runner-up.

However, the reigning champion has dismissed suggestions a fifth title is now safely in the bag.

“No, it’s not finished yet. Since I don’t have the points that say they cannot overtake me on the championship, it is not finished. Now, we can do this mistake – start to think that it is already there,” Marquez said.

“In 2014, I was thinking already of the championship at Misano, here and I was pushing too much and I crashed two races in a row – big mistake. We need to be focused and we need to keep working because in MotoGP everything can happen: mechanical, human mistake, weather conditions, injuries – you never know, so we need to keep focused to work hard on Tuesday because we have a test here. We will try to improve, try to keep focus and Thailand will be another race,” he added.

“We will take the same risks; I always say I start the weekend with the mentality to win on Sunday, and then during Sunday, I see if I can win or if I need to be on the podium.”

After halting Ducati’s recent run of success, Marquez says he is determined to work with Honda to ensure he is the ‘best rider on the best bike’ in 2019.

“I said yesterday that (Jorge) Lorenzo and Dovi were the two guys with the more rhythm, but in this race Dovi was faster than Lorenzo, especially with the used tyre. He was able to be in ’48 when he want in the practice, Dovi, but Lorenzo was struggling more with the used tyres. But yeah, the thing is with the hard, for riding style with our bike, I wasn’t feeling comfortable, especially on entry to the corner,” said Marquez.

“I was using too much the front, so Ducatis ride in another way, they don’t lean the bike – they just use the drive. It is another kind of riding style, another kind of motorbike, but in the end the lap time is the same one, so for that reason the battles, the fights, are really nice to see because he was very strong in one part of the track and I was very strong in another part of the track.

“In the end the compromise was exactly the same lap time,” he added. “This is good, because it means for next year we have to work hard, and now we have time to work, so me and Honda want to improve to be the best bike and the best rider.”

Marquez said he can still improve as a rider and warned there is no room for complacency in MotoGP.

“Of course I can improve, I am human so I can improve and every year you learn something. You need to improve and last year I learned many things from following Dovi, about managing the situations,” he said.

“This year I tried to copy those things and we can improve these things for next year, but we need to improve together – the team can improve and I can improve. This is the good thing in the sport, because if you don’t improve or find something different, it will be tough.”